


Will the Wise & the Ice Twins

by nothingwithoutyouxo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack?, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 19:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21325492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingwithoutyouxo/pseuds/nothingwithoutyouxo
Summary: When none of his friends will play his new D&D campaign with him, Will goes to Steve.
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley & Will Byers, Will Byers & Steve Harrington
Comments: 31
Kudos: 357





	Will the Wise & the Ice Twins

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I wrote this based off [my own text post](https://stranger-awakening.tumblr.com/post/188772797106/honestly-we-were-robbed-of-a-scene-where-will) that's been doing the rounds on Tumblr over the last two days. As soon as I posted it I knew I had to write somehing, so here's a quick one-shot. In terms of a time line, this takes place a little before season three. Essentially, it's summer but there's no bad stuff happening. I hope you guys like it!

Will was slowly realising that this might just be the worst summer of his life. He was finally free of whatever _ feeling _ had been occupying his mind for the last two years, but his friends were all busy. They all had _ girlfriends _. He almost hated the word, hated that it meant his party was starting to fall apart. Or at least, it felt like that sometimes. He almost regretted convincing Dustin to go to summer camp because even when Mike and Lucas weren’t busy, they still didn’t want to play D&D with him. Will hated that the most, even though he knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just left him feeling a little empty. He almost wished that he could hang out with Jonathan, but his brother had a summer job now, and not the kind that he could just drop in on. So Will went to find the only other person who would be ok with him being around. 

The bus to the mall was packed with too many people, and the laughter made Will miss his friends even more. As soon as he got off, he made a beeline for the double doors and headed straight in. Zoning out, he weaved his way through all the people and towards Scoops Ahoy. When Steve had gotten the job he’d told them all they were welcome there whenever they wanted. Will was just starting to worry that he’d been joking when he turned into the store. Steve was behind the counter handing a little girl a cone, when he looked up and saw Will, he broke out into a smile.

“Will!” he called with an overexaggerated wave. 

Just the sight of it made Will feel a little better. As he reached the register he remembered that he really didn’t have the money for this.

“Anyone else coming?” he asked.

Well, that was short lived. “Just me.”

Steve took note of the way Will’s shoulders slumped, he quickly glanced behind him and noticed there was no one else in line. “Take a seat,” he said, “I’m bringing you a sundae.”

“I don’t have - “

He shook his head. “On me.”

Will smiled faintly and then headed over to one of the empty booths. 

Steve quickly made his way to the back. Robin was sitting at the table, feet up and flicking through the latest Wonder Woman comic. “Can you take over? I’m on break.”

“You can’t be on break yet,” she replied, turning a page and not looking at him. 

“It’s important.”

Her brows drew together, but she didn’t question him. Robin sighed and put the comic down. “Fine,” she said. 

“Thank you.”

***

Steve slid the sundae across the table, taking the seat opposite Will. “USS Butterscotch,” he said. “I recommend it.”

Will looked down at it for a moment, avoiding Steve’s eyes, before stabbing at it with a spoon. “Thanks.”

He might have been a good babysitter but he wasn’t sure how to deal with one of the kids being upset. Steve thought it over for a minute as Will picked at the sundae. He figured it had something to do with the others not being here, since they were usually all joined at the hip. Maybe it was better not to make assumptions, just in case he was wrong. “So what’s wrong, Mini Byers?” he asked, using the nickname that he’d joked about with Jonathan. He couldn’t call them both the same thing.

A smile seemed to tempt him at the familiarity of it. “Everyone’s busy,” he explained. “They all have -” he didn’t want to say it. 

Steve didn’t need to hear it to know what he meant. “Have you talked to them about it?”

Will glared up at him, stabbing at the sundae with just a little too much force. 

He held up his hands in surrender. “Stupid thing to say,” he apologised.

“When we hang out all they do is talk about their girlfriends and I don’t get to be a part of that.”

“Because you don’t have one?” There was that glare again. Steve needed to learn to think before he spoke. 

“And I made this new campaign and it’s really good, like the best I’ve ever made and they won’t even play it with me,” he continued. 

“Campaign for what?” he asked.

“D&D.”

Steve could tell he was definitely supposed to know what that meant. He wished he did. “What’s D en D?”

Well, at least the question made Will laugh. “D _ and _D,” he said. “Dungeons and Dragons. You know when you were dating Nancy and her mum would make her go downstairs and get Mike from the basement? We were always playing D&D down there.”

“So it’s like a game?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Like a video game?”

“More like a board game.”

Steve could briefly remember dinners at the Wheeler house where Mike and Nancy would argue over mages and castles or whatever. “Wait - what’s the campaign?”

“The story of the game. You get to make it yourself.”

He couldn’t help but think that sounded kind of tedious, but maybe that was part of the fun. “So you have a campaign ready?” he asked.

Will nodded. 

“But the others are too busy?” He didn’t need a verbal answer to that. Steve already had a solution. “Teach me how to play it,” he said.

Will looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being serious or not. He didn’t take Steve as one to joke about something like this. He looked down at his half finished sundae and then back again. “Teach you my campaign?”

“Yeah. Your D&D campaign. I’ll play it with you.”

He wondered if Steve could tell just how much the thought of that meant to him. “We can’t play with just two people,” he explained. “We need at least three for it to work.”

“I can bring someone.”

“You’re not too busy?” he almost regretted the question, but he felt like he had to ask.

Steve shook his head. “How long does your campaign take?”

“With three people? Uh, a day.”

“Like a whole day?”

He nodded, worried that Steve would change his mind.

Steve didn’t hesitate. “I can take a day off.”

Maybe he was surprised that Steve was committing to this. Maybe he was surprised by just how much his mood had improved just at the thought of getting to play his campaign. He felt better than he had all week. Will wasn’t sure how to thank Steve for that.

“When I find another person I’ll let you know.”

***

“So how many kids _ are _you friends with?” Robin teased, tossing a popcorn cornell at him as he returned to the back room. 

“What was - I’m friends with his brother, ok?” he replied, taking a seat at the table and snatching up her comic.

“Be careful with that, dingus.”

He kicked her under the table, flicking to the first page. Tommy would have killed him if he saw him now. Sometimes Steve couldn’t believe he used to pride himself on not being a nerd.

“At least Jonathan is actually your age,” she said. 

“It’s not as weird as you think it is. How do you read this?”

She laughed, and ignored his question. “Sneaking a bunch of kids around isn’t weird? Sure.”

Steve squinted at the page, following the dialogue bubbles in what he thought had to be the right order. “Where’d you get the popcorn?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Seems like the kids aren’t the only ones sneaking around.”

Robin huffed across from him and he smirked down at the page, finally figuring out what he was looking at. 

“Do you know anything about D&D?” he asked. It was probably best to start with Robin, not that he had a long list of friends to get through these days. 

Robin jolted, a leg flailing out and narrowly missing Steve’s shin. “Who do you think I am?”

Steve looked up at her, confused at the outburst.

She sighed. “Of _ course _ I know about D&D. _ I’m _the nerd, remember.” Then she promptly snatched the comic away from him. 

“I was reading that.”

“Were you?”

Someone pressed the bell on the counter three times in quick succession. The two of them glanced up towards the closed shutters of the window. _ Oh no _.

“I am _ not _dealing with her again,” Robin said. “Your turn.”

Sometimes, Steve kind of hated this job. He ran his hands through his hair and then stood just as the bell rang again. “Coming!” he called.

“Time to change our free sample policy,” Robin muttered under her breath. 

***

When Steve finally managed to convince Erica and her two friends that she’d had enough samples for the day the shop felt eerily quiet. Finally, some peace. 

The window shutters fell open as Robin burst through, holding her whiteboard in her hands. “You know what, dingus, I’ll be nice and take off one ‘you suck’ mark just for dealing with that.”

Steve watched as she wiped off one tally mark from the board, and then placed it back down. 

“So what’s with the new D&D interest?” she asked, leaning against the wall. 

“It’s for Will,” he explained, “the kid that was here earlier. He’s … having a rough summer and needs someone to play with.”

Her expression softened. “So you offered to play?”

“Yeah, but we need more than two people.”

“What’s his campaign like?” she asked.

Steve tried to remember everything Will had explained to him just a few hours before. “Uh, magic stuff. I think. He has it all planned out.”

Robin smirked, but didn’t comment on his lack of memory. “Does he have characters already built?”

He shook his head. “I think it’s just what his friends usually play as. They’ve all got their own characters. Or whatever.”

She regarded Steve for a moment. He genuinely seemed worried about Will, which was kind of sweet. It had been a while since she’d been a part of a campaign. “I can be your third,” she said.

Steve perked up at that. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Tell him I’ll come prepared.”

***

“Hello?” Will asked into the receiver. Jonathan wasn’t home yet and his mum still hadn’t quite come to terms with answering it so it was up to him to stop the incessant ringing. 

“Will?”

“Steve?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You said we could play your campaign with three players, right?” he asked. 

Will took longer than he thought he would to process that, excitement starting to nestle within him. “Yeah.”

“Robin, the girl I work with, she said she’d be our third.”

Will’s nose scrunched up. “Are you -”

“No, it’s not like that,” he reassured. “She’s a friend. She’s played before.”

“Cool.”

“Robin said she’d make her own character. Is that part of it?”

Will made a mental note that he’d need to have his manual with him when they played. Or at the very least write down the basic rules so Steve would have something to look at. “Yeah, it’s part of it.”

“So I’ll have to make a character too?”

“I can help you with that.”

***

Steve expected it to be a lot harder to get a day off than it was. It didn’t even take long for Robin to convince their manager that she wouldn’t be in on that same day, though Steve wasn’t sure what happened during that conversation. Now he was driving the two of them out to the Byers’ house. Steve couldn’t help but think it was kind of weird to have Robin in his car with him. It wasn’t something that had happened before, but he couldn’t think of a better reason for it. Robin had her feet up on the dash and a heavy book in her lap along with a stack of paper of handwritten notes that she was reading over. 

“So what’s all that stuff?” he asked, turning down the radio a touch so he could hear her response.

Robin shrugged, not looking up at him. “Character stuff,” she said. “I’ve had all of this since ninth grade.”

“Oh, so you’re like a proper nerd?” he teased.

She thumped him in the shoulder. “Shut up.”

There wasn’t a car in the driveway as Steve pulled in, which must have meant they were the only ones around. He could still remember the last time he was here, and it was an eerie thought as he led Robin up to the door. Will looked a lot happier than he had a few days ago as he pulled the door open, and a wave of relief crashed through Steve at the sight.

“You actually came,” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Brought us a third. Will, Robin. Robin, Will,” Steve introduced, a hand gesturing at the empty air between them.

Will offered a slightly uncomfortable wave before stepping aside to let them in. 

“Dude, your house is so cool,” Robin said as she trailed in behind Steve.

“Uh, thanks,” he muttered. “So I set up in the living room. It’s not … Mike’s basement but it’ll do, I guess.”

Steve reached over and nudged at Will’s shoulder, sensing his change in mood at the statement. Maybe he should have stopped by Scoops and bought them all some ice cream. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? “We don’t need the basement,” he reassured, offering a smile that Will managed to return.

Robin dropped to the floor next to the coffee table where the board was set up, the two boys quickly followed. “Your house has a basement?” she asked.

Will shook his head. “My friend’s house does. We usually play there.”

She nodded, and placed her pile down next to her, grabbing her character sheets. “Well, this is a better set up than I’m used to. Did you wanna look over these?”

Steve hadn’t factored in just how long it could take to build a character. It took him a good hour to figure out what the difference between the classes were and he _ still _wasn’t sure what all their strengths and weaknesses were. Eventually he gave up and just let Robin and Will build the character for him, it wasn’t like he would really know what was happening, and watching the two of them bond was a reward within itself. They were on the same page, brimming with the same nerd energy as Will started reading out the opening of the campaign and Robin was already too excited to roll the dice. 

“What’s that?” Steve asked, pointing over towards a tall purple hat sitting behind Will.

Will turned around and winced at the sight of it. “It’s nothing,” he said.

“Is it a wizard’s hat?” Robin asked. 

He hesitated, eyes trained on what he was reading. “Yeah, it’s - for my character.”

Steve reached around him, plucked the hat up and put it on Will’s head.

One of Will’s hands flew to it as if he was going to pull it off. “It’s stupid,” he muttered, sounding entirely unsure. 

“I like it,” Robin smiled at him. “It suits you.”

He swallowed, his hand falling back into his lap. After a moment, he smiled. “I have robes too,” he explained, voice quieter than it had been.

“Well, why aren’t you wearing them?” She caught Steve’s eye and they silent made a deal between them. 

It couldn’t be considered ganging up on Will but with enough prompting he changed into the purple robes that matched his hat and the two of them gave him a round of applause as he re-entered the room.

“Alright, Will the Wise, sit down and let’s do this.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me over on [Tumblr](http://www.stranger-awakening.tumblr.com) if you want to chat!  
Thanks for reading!


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